Absolution
by Alex Foster
Summary: Snap-shots from a nightmare that paints a picture of what could have been. One woman remembers.


Title: Absolution

Author: Alex Foster

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Category: General

Rating: PG

Summary: Snap-shots from a nightmare that paints a picture of what could have been. One woman remembers.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Watanabe/Sunrise. No money is being made and no infringement is intended.

* * *

__

You shoot the moon and miss completely

And now you're left to face the gloom

The empty room that once smelled sweetly

Of all the flowers you plucked if only

You knew the reason why you had to each be lonely

Norah Jones -- _Shoot The Moon_

* * *

It always begins in the narrow confines of a stolen car.

It is the second car they had to steal that night. Rain is still coming down in sheets. The left windshield wiper, the one on the passenger side, is a little too tight and it drags against the glass with every swipe.

He drives and she watches the falling raindrops illuminated by the headlights. The car smells like cigarette smoke, stale perfume, and roses. The heat is running to prevent the windows from steaming up and the cab is hot and stuffy.

Despite all that, both smile. They are free. Hunting season has opened and the best hunter of all with his freshly sharpened sword is close behind, but that doesn't matter yet.

The engine revs and they push deeper into the blackness, running to ground.

* * *

They have been hunters long enough to know the score. Before they ditched the first car they emptied their credit accounts—cash doesn't leave a trail. It's stupid to run; they know this. The Elders might have overlooked their flight—Spike had powerful friends and all the crimes he had proof of were the ones he helped commit—but _he_ would never stop searching.

She betrayed Vicious—so did Spike but his cut wasn't as deep. She had met his icy gaze and lied. She had welcomed him to her bed before it was cold from Spike's quick departure. Betrayal was embarrassment to Vicious. It was a personal attack for which there was only one payment: swift and sure vengeance.

They know Vicious will turn the full resources of Red Dragon after them. He'll release the hounds and load the sniper rifles. The Red Dragon loved their snipers: wait until the prey was at the fence line and then pull the trigger. Let the runners smell freedom and then put a couple of bullets in their backs.

Julia knows that she is the prize between two alpha males. Through her happiness, she knows that it was now a race between Spike and Vicious. Who is the better hunter? Who will keep the prize?

* * *

Halfway across Mars they finally stop and buy a ticket off world.

"Where're ya two headed?"

"Don't care. What's leaving now?"

They catch a transport to Ganymede. They have no plan beyond landing there and no place to stay, but that doesn't matter because even the dirtiest hovel is great when you are free. They will test that theory before she leaves Ganymede.

They sit in the back of the dimly lit shuttle and kiss as the red planet falls away behind them.

"From here it's all smooth riding, babe."

* * *

Ganymede is a blur. They run by night and sleep where they can during the day. It's hard because Red Dragon has eyes everywhere. They ration their woolongs like castaways in a lifepod saving the last few morsels of food. Stealing more money would draw attention they don't want and stopping to earn more would take too much time. Best to keep running until they can find a nice crack in the solar system to slide through.

One memory stands out on Ganymede. Not long after the transport, they rent a room at an ask-no-questions motel and share a respite.

In the rundown lobby he smiles and calls her Angela—Angel for short. She smiles back and calls him Robert. Here, it's a game. Angela and Robert are newly married, from Earth, and have always been free. They were Julia's idea. Spike would have just given the fat manager a couple of extra woolongs to have never seen them, but for that night Julia wanted to be Angela.

The room is small with stains on the walls and floors and a bed with orange colored sheets, but for that night it is perfect. She immediately strips the bed down to the battered mattress (bugs, she says) and he examines the room with a hunter's eye. He finds an old radio and coaxes it into crackling out some jazz.

Barefoot, they dance in the small room. Freedom is sweet. They make love with a green neon sign outside their single window casting sputtering light on the bed.

The next day the respite is over and Angela and Robert leave the motel.

* * *

Two weeks later they hear that Annie had an 'accident.' It happened in broad daylight on Mars so no one saw a thing. They don't know how Mao reacted when he learned of her death, and can only hope that he'll be able to rein in his old protege.

Hope, however, is a valuable commodity and they don't have enough to split between Mars and Ganymede.

Both have seen the results of Vicious' anger and their imaginations can fill in what their contact in the syndicate leaves out. Vicious went to Annie looking for information but she couldn't give up what she didn't know.

He did not so much as scratch her above the neck so identification was easy. Spike rages and Julia mourns and wonders if Vicious fantasized about her while he did it.

Though they don't know it yet, that is the beginning of the end.

Julia begins having nightmares of a shadowy figure hunting them. In the dreams, Vicious is everywhere. Hands grab her from the shadows. "Are you seeing Spike behind my back?" a memory asks.

She wakes every morning in a cold sweat. After moments of terrifying confusion—where are we today?—she clings to Spike and tries to pretend the bogeyman and his long sword doesn't exist.

* * *

Another week passes and the body count climbs.

Friends and old lovers fall to Vicious. He wants information and will not stop. An unfunny joke passes between them that it is a good thing they don't have any family for him to track down.

Shin sends them one last piece of information from the Syndicate and then goes silent. They don't know if he is alive or dead, but can assume that Vicious now knows they are on Ganymede.

They again take to the waves and run from the hounds that are getting closer to their heels.

Julia no longer smiles and Spike begins looking longingly over his shoulder. He wants to fight and she wants absolution.

"I'm not worth it," she tells him one night. They are in a bed bathed in blood red neon light, her hair spilling around them as she leans against his bare chest and raises herself up on her elbows. He used to love to touch her hair, calling it golden silk. Now, however, it is unkempt, dirty, and no longer silky.

"Yes, you are. We're free. We got out. That's all that matters."

They share their last cigarette. The smoke lazily climbs to the ceiling and the slowly turning fan.

"We got out but it won't last. It never could have. There is only one way it could end for the three of us."

"There is no three—it's just us."

"Do you love me, Spike?" Her voice catches. The pressure is beginning to build.

"Always."

* * *

He begins talking about other places they can go. Venus, maybe, or one of the other satellites of Jupiter. "Do you like the cold, babe?"

She doesn't hear any of his plans. Plans back on Mars were happy and painted a picture of a bright future; these plans only deal with getting away. How long can we survive?

Through the haze of cigarette smoke and tequila, she sees the end. She is the prize between alpha males and it can only end one way. It's like some sort of old story that is entertaining unless you are one of the main characters—then it's just scary as hell.

Spike plans and talks to her about becoming Robert and Angela again, but she doesn't respond. She watches the seascape pass by in numb realization. He speaks of the future, of getting away, but she knows he really wants to go back. Face the bogeyman because you can never really escape from the past. You can hide but you can't run.

They stop at one of the small islands that dot this moon without learning its name. Salt is heavy in the air and the wind is cold like Death's own fingers. There is no neon here; only a bare bulb in a lamp that was old before the gate accident.

In days it will be over.

* * *

The dreams are worse now. Julia screams until Spike wakes her. She sees the faces of all that died because of them. Death itself does not trouble her—she wouldn't have invited it to her bed if it did—but the fact that all she knew died for a goal that she could never reach does.

"This is not freedom," she whispers one day as they travel. She dips her fingers into the quickly passing water and then licks them clean. The water is salty, like tears. "We didn't accomplish anything coming here."

Spike disagrees and they argue before settling into uncomfortable silence. She lies awake that night thinking about absolution, alpha males, and the past.

The next day brings more silence. Spike apologizes but this is her private struggle. She keeps out the one person who would understand, her fellow betrayer.

* * *

It ends quickly one night in the cockpit of a waverider. She leaves a note on the pillow her once silky hair had occupied, but knows the words won't be enough for him. She would have explained things better if she knew the reasons herself.

Julia watches him sleep for a long while before leaving. She stares at him as though her force of will could wake him and make him stop her. She takes in the sight of his bare chest, fuzzy hair made wild with sleep, and the look of peaceful ignorance on his sleeping face. To her eyes, his face is that of a beautiful angel that left heaven willingly because he didn't like their type of business.

In the end, however, he doesn't wake and there is no one to stop her. She runs and doesn't look back. She runs from Spike, Vicious, the memories of the Syndicate, and of those that died for her dream. In the back her mind she knows that she is simply stepping aside so the alpha males can have at each other. Like the dominant female of a wolf pack, she'll be waiting for the victor from the inevitable clash...

* * *

These things, though, did not happen. The hot and stuffy car, dancing barefoot to jazz, the body count, the escape in the middle of the night are all dreams that float away with the smoke from her cigarette.

Julia sits in a bar she failed to catch the name of, nursing her last cigarette, and watching the smoke curl upward through an alcohol induced haze. As she does every night, Julia sees how things could have been. The images blur together into one long nightmare.

That nightmare is her absolution, her affirmation that she did the right thing. In reality, she left Spike waiting in the rain, in that cemetery, because she knew how it would end. She had already lived it. They would destroy everything by running together. Her way, the betrayal wasn't as biting to Vicious. His vengeance was that Spike was 'dead' and she was alone and running like a wounded animal.

It is better this way. And the price was only the future she and Spike were going to build. She finds absolution in the fact it would have ended badly. She wishes that she could have told him it would never have worked, that she'd been down the path and seen its tragic end, but he wouldn't have cared. To him, the attempt would have been worth it.

As she makes her way to the door, the same jazz song from her nightmare begins playing from somewhere in the bar. Julia hurries outside before the imaginary memories of slow dancing in an ask-no-questions motel can catch up with her.

****

End.


End file.
